Sunday, November 25, 2012

World’s Tallest Tent in Kazakhstan

Khan Shatyr Entertainment Center in Astana, the capital city of
Kazakhstan, is an architectural project that is billed as the world’s
largest tent. The “tent” is made of a transparent material and suspended
on a network of cables strung from a central spire 150 meters high. The
structure has a 200 meter elliptical base enclosing an area of 140,000
square metres. Underneath the tent, an area larger than 10 football
stadiums, is an urban-scale internal park, shopping and entertainment
venue with squares and cobbled streets, a boating river, shopping
centre, mini golf and indoor beach resort. The transparent material
allows sunlight through which, in conjunction with air heating and
cooling systems, maintains a comfortable internal temperature between
15–30 °C while outside the temperature varies between -35 and 35 °C
across the year.

To prevent condensation in the winter, three translucent layers of
ethylene tetrafluoroethylene fabric or EFTE act to channel warm air. In
summer, fritting on the outermost foil layer provides solar shading.
Inside, low-level jets direct cool air across the space, while opening
vents at the apex induce stack-effect ventilation. The transparency and
scale of the tent stands out in the skyline like a beacon, changing
colors at night and streaming in natural light during the day.

Inaugurated in 2010 by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, the Khan
Shatyr was described as “the latest vanity project” of Kazakhstan's
increasingly autocratic president by The Guardian.

Nazarbayev moved Kazakhstan's capital to the isolated northern city from
Almaty in 1998 and renamed it Astana, which means, literally,
"capital". On the tenth anniversary of the move, Nazarbayev signed a
decree declaring 6 July – which happens to be his birthday – Astana Day.
The name “Khan Shatyr” itself roughly translates as 'the tent of the
khan, or king”.

Nazarbayev has ruled Kazakhstan with an iron fist since it gained
independence amid the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. His current
presidential term expires in 2012, but under legal changes approved by
parliament in 2007, he is allowed to serve as president indefinitely.